Alive
by sablize
Summary: alive, adj - having life; unextinguished; existent


I just couldn't resist writing some Doctor/TARDIS after this last episode.

* * *

><p><strong>Alive<strong>

_**alive **__(adj)- having life; __unextinguished__; __existent_

—

What a strange sensation, the going the going the going and the coming to.

(coming to _where_?)

She blinked. Straightened. And… fingers, hands. She waved them in front of her face, eyes wide in amazement, as golden light fell from her fingertips. She had been like this once, so long ago and for so short a time. _Bad Wolf_. A golden girl with golden hair and golden eyes. But this, _this_… so different. She wiggled a finger, a toe, a nose.

There was a word. She _knew_. This word, it was on the tip of her tongue. So close and yet so entirely far away.

Her brain was still a little scrambled when she heard his voice.

—

"Thief, thief! You're my thief!"

Oh how she hated words. They could not, would not come out right. She knew it was the right word, but not the _right_ word.

Though for all her worrying, she didn't care, not one bit. Because now she could see his face—surprised, wary—and suddenly his shoulders were underneath her fingers, and he felt real, so _real_, like he had never felt before. She gripped his arms as he tried to wrestle out from under her and she became confused. He should know, he should—

"Look at you!" she exclaimed, as if she'd never seen him before. Well, she had, but not here, not with _eyes_. And his face was shocked but she searched it hungrily, trying to memorize how he looked when she was not a blue box but a human.

"Goodbye!" _Wrong, wrong._ "No, not goodbye—what's the other one?"

And then she kissed him because she could, and she was so _happy_.

—

She was scaring them, she could tell. But it wasn't like she could _help_ it. She was so… she felt so…

She hated words. But she was no longer a box, and she was happy. This was all she knew.

"You will be angry. The little boxes will make you angry..." were the next words (stupid, stupid words) that came out of her mouth. She knew they were true but she didn't know _how_ she knew. And thus she discovered the first truly debilitating weakness of the human mind; she remembered the golden girl and was afraid.

But as her Thief came out from behind the protective arms of his companions, she grabbed his chin and laughed. There was no room in her new brain to be afraid, especially when said brain was still a little scrambled. She wasn't used to her thoughts spinning at a mile a minute like tiny people were running about inside her head. And besides, his chin was _hilarious_.

However, as she continued to spit out all the future-truths that wormed their way into her head, she allowed herself to sober, just for a bit. _Golden girl, you are going to burn_…

Then her legs gave way.

—

She did not know the word but she knew it was sad. Or would be sad. And so she laid there, huffing air angrily through her nostrils, and tried some more.

When her Thief came to her, angry as predicted and demanding answers, she was calm (such a lovely word, _calm_, in the way it rolls off the tongue). "Do you really not know me?"

(for a brilliant man, he could be a bit slow sometimes)

And when he said, "The TARDIS," in a voice so full of disbelief, she got a little angry. So she began to say things only the two of them would know, and the disbelief turned to realization and back to disbelief and then he sprung her from her cage, and she looked into his eyes and memorized the color.

—

She clutched her stomach—_ow_, what was this?—and turned, eyes fearful and wide.

The answer was on his face even before he scanned her, but she already knew anyways: "You're dying."

She snatched the screwdriver from his hand. "Yes, of course I'm dying. I don't belong in a flesh body." And he hated it as much as she did, she could see it in his eyes. So she told him, strictly, "Don't get emotional."

He didn't get emotional, he got an idea. And that was what she loved best about her Thief.

—

Perhaps she spoke too soon or maybe she was just irritating him. Well, she couldn't help that either, because maybe it irritated _her_ that the 'Pull to Open' was so often rejected. And yes, he was really being quite childish.

But when he got up in her face like that and said, "You know, _you_ have never been very reliable," she was no longer irritated but downright insulted.

"And _you_ have?"

"You didn't always take me where I wanted to go!" Oh, how he sounded like a hurt little child.

"No," she replied, loudly, "but I always took you where you _needed_ to go."

This, she noted with satisfaction, stopped him in his tracks. And suddenly he was smiling and happy and full of ideas again so she figured she could be happy too.

Then she collapsed, but he caught her just as she had hoped he would, and whispered, "You're okay."

She so wanted to believe him.

She told him eighteen minutes, so he started to work. And they worked and worked until they had a console, and she told him he was mad, she talked to his friend (the pretty one), and they made it to the TARDIS. And everything was going right at the same time everything was going wrong.

—

The House was hurting her Thief, her Doctor, but her legs could not hold her, and she knew in that second her eighteen minutes were almost up. The Pretty One said something she could not hear, and suddenly the Doctor had his hand in hers and was saying, "Hey, hang in there old girl." He pressed his palm to her cheek urgently. "Not long now. It'll be over soon."

"Always liked it when you called me old girl."

Her throat was closing up and she didn't think she could speak anymore, but that was okay. Her Doctor was back to reasoning with the House, anyways, and all she wanted to do was rest. There was a bright light and she thought it was over, until she felt the cool floor of the current console room against her back (and relished it, this act of feeling). But she knew it was nearly time and told the closest person—the Pretty One—what he needed to hear, like she knew she was supposed to. He was confused, but that was okay; he wouldn't understand yet. Her work was done. She didn't need to breathe anymore and she felt herself slipping—

And she was _free_.

(however, there was time for one last… goodbye)

"Doctor? Are you there?"

"I'm here," he replied, breath catching in his throat. But she needed him to be strong, to be strong for just this last moment.

"I've been looking for a word." _Searching endlessly, fruitlessly_. "A big, complicated word, but so sad. I found it now." _And it tasted like grief_.

"What word?"

She smiled.

"_Alive_."


End file.
